The present invention relates to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material. More particularly it is concerned with a silver halide color photograrphic light-sensitive material characterized by containing a coupler the dye moiety of which, said dye moiety having been shifted in its maximum absorption wavelength to the shorter wavelength side, forms a dye having the original maximum absorption wavelength of the dye moiety due to coupling reaction with an oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent, and a compound which releases a development inhibitor or its precursor upon reaction with an oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent.
In conventional silver halide color light-sensitive materials, the desired color images have been obtained by forming dyes such as indophenol, indoaniline, indamine, azomethine, phenoxazine, phenazine and the like through the reaction between an oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine color developing agent and a color image-forming agent (i.e., a coupler).
Color reproduction in the above system is usually carried out by the substractive process; i.e., silver halide emulsions selectively sensitive to blue, green and red, and yellow, magenta and cyan color image-forming agents (yellow, magenta and cyan coupler, respectively) in complementary relation with the above emulsions are used.
These couplers and dyes derived from the couplers govern photographic properties such as sensitivity, graininess, sharpness and color reproductivity of the color light-sensitive material, or storage stability of dye images formed to light and heat. Thus extensive investigations have been made on improvements of the couplers. The color image-forming method utilizing as image-forming dyes only dyes such as indophenol, indoaniline, indamine and azomethine dyes as formed due to a coupling reaction with an oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine-based color developing agent has already been developed to such a technical level that no significant further improvement could be expected.
Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 145135/79 and 56837/72 (the term "OPI" as used herein means a "published unexamined Japanese patent application") disclose novel photographic couplers releasing a photographically useful group (PUG) from a coupler radical through a timing group by the coupling reaction with an oxidized developing agent. It is described that PUG includes, as well as a development inhibitor, a developer, a bleach inhibitor and a coupler, a photographic dye. In the case that PUG is a photographic dye, however, the effects of the photographic dye on photographic performance or properties are not disclosed at all in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 56837/72. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 145135/79 discloses that when a photographic dye as the released PUG is used, the color density is increased as a function of the coupler. However, there is no disclosure about the effects on the photographic performance in the color image-forming method of color photographic materials. Moreover there cannot be found any description about photographic properties such as sharpness, graininess and color reproductivity when the photographic dye is used in the presence of other photographic materials in the photographic element.
One of the features of the present invention is to use a coupler which is characterized in that it contains a dye moiety the maximum absorption wavelength of which has been shifted to a shorter wavelength by a bond undergoing a cleavage upon the coupling reaction with the oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent, and it forms, as a result of the coupling reaction, a compound containing a dye moiety having the original maximum absorption wavelength thereof. In the photographic material of the present invention, when a dye is formed by bonding the coupler radical of the coupler of the present invention with the oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent another dye is formed by a bond cleavage thereby forming an image. This dye formed by cleavage of a bond from the nucleus of the coupler radical makes it possible to solve various problems as encountered in using only dyes formed by the coupling reaction of the conventional couplers with the oxidized product of a developing agent. That is, an increase in dye image density, i.e., color density, an improvement in color reproductivity by controlling the hue of color image, and an increase in fastness of the color image can be realized. As a result of the increase in color density, amounts of the coupler corresponding to the increase of color density and the silver halide used can be decreased, thereby the layer thickness can be decreased to improve the sharpness. However the graininess is still unsatisfactory even though the sharpness is increased by decreasing the layer thickness. In a low light exposure range where the graininess is recognized, the sharpness and the graininess are not satisfied at the same time.